1. Field of Invention
The invention is generally directed to a therapeutic device for the promotion of wound healing. More particularly, the present invention relates to providing fluid irrigation and vacuum drainage of a wound.
2. Related Art
These devices are normally used in clinical settings such as hospitals or extended care facilities, but patients can often be located in non-clinical environments, where portability, ease of use, and control of therapy parameters is necessary. Such places can, for example, include the home, office or motor vehicles, and at the extreme, military battlefields and other locations where electrical power may be unreliable or unavailable.
Negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT), also known as vacuum drainage or closed-suction drainage, is known. A vacuum source is connected to a semi-occluded or occluded therapeutic member, such as a compressible wound dressing. Various porous dressings comprising gauze, felts, foams, beads and/or fibers can be used in conjunction with an occlusive semi-permeable cover and a controlled vacuum source. In addition to negative pressure, there exist pump devices configured to supply positive pressure to another therapeutic member, such as an inflatable cuff for various medical therapies.
In addition to using negative pressure wound therapy, many devices employ concomitant wound irrigation. For example, a known wound healing apparatus includes a porous dressing made of polyurethane foam placed adjacent a wound and covered by a semi-permeable and flexible plastic sheet. The dressing further includes fluid supply and fluid drainage connections in communication with the cavity formed by the cover, foam and skin. The fluid supply is connected to a fluid source that can include an aqueous topical anesthetic or antibiotic solution, isotonic saline, or other medicaments for use in providing therapy to the wound. The fluid drainage can be connected to a vacuum source where fluid can be removed from the cavity and subatmospheric pressures can be maintained inside the cavity. The wound irrigation apparatus, although able to provide efficacious therapy, is somewhat cumbersome, difficult to use without trained professional medical personnel, and generally impractical outside the clinical setting. Such a device does not address various factors concerning patients outside clinical settings.
Some devices use vacuum sealing of wound dressings consisting of polyvinyl alcohol foam cut to size and stapled to the margins of the wound. Such dressings are covered by a semi-permeable membrane while suction and fluid connections are provided by small plastic tubes which are introduced into the foam generally through the patient's skin. Such devices alternate in time between vacuum drainage and the introduction of aqueous medicaments to the wound site, but do not do both simultaneously. While the prior devices have proven to be useful in fixed therapeutic sites, such devices require improvement to render broader and friendlier use.